Rising Shards

“Social Studies Lessons”

“And that is why they say to avoid the ‘toes’ of East Valataran.” Ms. Letoh said, pointing to a series of islands on the board.

Ms. Letoh’s computer froze as she had a slideshow up about the states of the VCV, so she decided to use the projection frozen on East Valataran to go over a bunch of factoids about the state.

“I have a question,” Kalei said. “In the whole VCV, Valataran’s like the furthest west on the mainland, yeah? “Why’s it called East Valataran?”

“A long time ago, they named it East Valataran trying to trick invaders.” Ms. Letoh said.

“That’s so goofy,” Kalei said. “There’s no way just changing the name of like which direction it’s in would do anything. They could just see it and go to it. Right?”

"The tall tales all say it worked!" Letoh said. "The name is a point of pride for the people of East Valataran."

Kalei groaned. “Remind me never to go to East Valataran and get scolded about how cool naming your place the wrong direction is.”

Ms. Letoh covered her mouth with her hand as she chuckled. Her computer screen went blank, as did the projector. “Aw, rats. Well, what’s next. How about some current events? Did you all see that the new champion/president of Haven had a big kerfuffle at an airport?”

“Who, Kitty?” Oka asked. “I try not to think about her having power over a whole state.”

“No, the current president is actually Slep Dung IV.” Letoh said. “Kitty lost her championship belt and her Haven presidential status fairly recently. I assume that’s why she’s been more active around here.”

“How do you go from being a big famous fighting champion president to here? A dumb school?” Kalei asked.

“Seriously!” Iris said. “But to be honest, she was getting up there in years fight wise. Her heart didn’t seem to be in it as much as it was for singing.”

“Also, there’s a new champion/president like every month in Haven,” Ko said. “Source: me. Kai and I are from there.”

“Yeah, I don’t think they even let the champ do a lot of governing. Just promo time, really.” Kai said.

“Is it weird to adjust to Exoun?” I asked, thinking of all the bizarre things I’d heard about life in Haven.   

“Our family moved here way long ago, so not really?” Kai said. “I barely remember living in Haven, to be honest. It’s still like home but this is also like home. Like big home.”

“Yeah, but we keep up with it still.” Ko said.

“Watching Haven fights is different from living there, though.” Kai said. “But I guess even if it isn’t like big home, it’s like a home.”

“Secrets of the Storage Room”

“We should get paid for this,” Iris said for the sixth time. “It’s like a for real job in here!”

I was too busy sliding a heavy box over to respond.

The closets in the back of our void studies class were filled with walls of cardboard, and Caya had tasked us with checking through them and organizing them. Each group got a closet, with specific instructions on how to check through everything.

“Step one, slide box.” I said, trying to sound like this heavy box wasn’t a huge pain to move and I wasn’t pulling a bunch of muscles with my weak little arms and sweating all over the place after moving three boxes so far. “Step one…done. Then step two is…open box.”

“Huh?” Kalei said, looking up from her phone for a sec. “Yeah…I kinda…one sec.”

“How’s the new phone?” I asked. Kalei’s phone had gotten pretty destroyed from the events of the weekend, but luckily her mom was on the case and got her a new one right away.

“S’fine.” Kalei said.

“Kalei, about the phone…” Iris said.

“Yeah?” Kalei asked.

“Can I take over on step two?” Iris asked.

“That’s not even about the phone.” Kalei said.

“I know, I just wanted to get your attention!” Iris said. “Not looking up from that danged thing while I’m here with the grunt work. I could open things, that’s a skill in my toolset? So can I jump on step two? Step two-oolset.” She snorted. “Sounds kinda funny.”

“You’re on step one, you and Zeta get to move boxes.” Lillia said. “Kalei and I open them and note the contents, and Oka and Latte…well.” Latte wasn’t even pretending to help out, she was at her desk at the front of the classroom staring at Lillia. “Oka gets to handle labeling and repackaging.”

“Well, Kalei ain’t doing squat right now, so,” Iris said. “Trade please?”

“She gets a pass,” I said. “It’s only fair.”

“You trade with me then, Zeta!” Iris said. “I’m sick of moving boxes!”

“I’m on box duty too, though…”

“Ugh, I’ll move the damn boxes,” Kalei said.

“Yay!” Iris said. She eagerly reached for the box cutter, but Lillia kept that out of her reach, instead handing her a clipboard.

“Please don’t complain as much about this task,” Lillia said. “And if your inventory reports are inaccurate, I will be extremely displeased.” After a quick slice of tape, Lillia opened the cardboard flaps as though she were opening a treasure chest.

“Looks like…more textbooks.” Iris said.

“Make sure you write the titles down.” Lillia said.

Iris sighed and poked around. “They’re all the same book.”

“Then write down the title and how many copies.” Lillia said.

Iris pouted. “Zeta, do you want to trade back?”

“Now for my turn!” Oka said once Lillia dragged Iris into doing her job.

Oka had a tape roller and a laser label maker. The laser label maker was really cool, and I really wanted to call dibs on it, but Oka was so giddy when she got it that I couldn’t take that from her. After taping the boxes back up, she pressed the label maker down, leaving the day’s date imprinted on the cardboard with a faint glow. Oka went “BwwWOW” every time she pressed it down.

“You don’t have to make a noise,” Lillia said. “It already makes a noise.”

“I kinda do, sorry.” Oka said.

The next box was lighter and was filled with banners for a pride event of some kind.

“Oh my god,” Oka said. She unfurled one and presented it to us. “Read this one.”

“’Rising Shards Pride: the gayest Cani school in the district.’” I read.

“Why the frick did we ever get rid of this?” Oka said. “That‘s an insanely good slogan! They even had it trademarked!”

“It’s a bit on the nose.” Lillia said.

“In an awesome way, I think at least!” Oka said. She snickered to herself as an idea came to her. She turned some dials on her label maker. “Here, check it.” Oka said. She held up her labeler to the sign and put ‘ZETA AND OKA’ over ‘school.’”

“The gayest Zeta and Oka in the district.” Iris said. “What does that even mean?”

“It means I dare you to find a Zeta and Oka gayer than Zeta and myself! Nigh impossible, it is, I reckon.” Oka said.

“You went through approximately five accents there.” Lillia said. She jabbed her hand out. “Overuse of accents kill shot.”

“You didn’t say hup, it doesn’t count.” Oka said, swatting Lillia away.

“It’s a penalty kill shot, it counts double.” Lillia said.

After we had successfully documented and labeled a bunch of old junk, Oka, Lillia, and I followed Kalei to her desk. She sighed and took out her phone again.

“Everything good with you?” I asked.

Kalei sighed, putting her head down. “Risa sent me a text.”

“How are you feeling about that?” I asked.

“I dunno if I want to answer,” Kalei said, turning my way. “But like, I also gotta answer.”

“Well, you don’t have to tell us if you’re uncomfortable.” Oka said.

“I don’t mean you guys, I mean text her back,” Kalei said.

“You don’t have to write back right away,” I said. “Maybe think about it a bit first.”

“Yeah…” Kalei said. “Hey. This is gonna sound corny, and if you make fun of me for this I will up the ante on my snark to ultra-high levels. But…” She buried her head on her desk again before rising up, inhaling deeply like she had just woken up from a bad dream. “Even if I’m friends with Risa again, you’re still my best friends, got it? I can have multiple best friends.”

“Of course.” Oka said.

“Thanks.” Kalei said. She held her fist out, and all four of us pressed our fists together.